The three-day battle of Gettysburg, generally regarded as the turning point of the Civil War, is described in these pages largely in the words of participants. The confrontation between General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and the Union army under General Meade took place in and around the town itself, and its citizens were much involved (extraordinarily, the only civilian fatality was a woman hit by a stray bullet in her kitchen). Wheeler has collected vivid accounts not only from veterans who wrote about it but from male and female townspeople (and outside observers), and presents this with the narrative skill displayed in Sword Over Richmond. With a sure grasp of strategic nuances, he explains the overall campaign that began in the broadest sense when Lee talked Confederate President Davis into authorizing a second invasion of the North. The climactic battle itself is then described in a you-are-there way that renders this enormously complicated affair understandable to nonCivil War buffs. Illustrations. BOMC alternate. (July)